‘Historically technology has been a net job creator’
Published on : Wednesday 22-01-2020
Peush Mahajan, former Director, Engineers India Limited.
What are the leading trends in factory/process automation segment the industry is likely to witness?
Automation industry has been revolutionised by the digital technology for efficiency improvement, minimising atmospheric pollution, cost reduction, production improvement and waste reduction which are aimed at delivering optimum performance. If we go by the available statistics, the automation market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 7.23% during 2019-2024. Digitalised technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) have increased the bandwidth of industrial automation and utilisation of resources. Some of the leading technology trends in this era of data explosion include:
IIoT Technology in Process Industry
Tighter integration of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) continues to accelerate the Innovative solutions for maintenance and operation sensitive areas such as Asset management, predictive maintenance, and efficient energy management, Plant safe and efficient operation.
Growth in MES (Manufacturing execution system) Segment
IIoT and Industrial 4.0 shall be the dominating trends in the industrial sector fuelling MES growth with machinery and devices being connected via the internet optimising entire manufacturing process including supply chain, production, delivery, genealogy, and customer service. The use of Web services and IoT technology shall facilitate the integration and synchronisation of the entire manufacturing enterprise.
Growth in IIoT connected Devices
The number of IoT connected devices will increase by 152% in revenue by 2023 from 2017 which accounts for around 51.11 billion US dollars. This number will give huge push to the technology providers to continue to invest in research and development.
Growth in Robotic Technology
The adoption rate of robots continues to accelerate, as further innovations, lower prices, simplified programming and user acceptance continue to increase. The growth of collaborative robots is evident, with these robots working cooperatively with people.
Development of Open Systems
New open system options shall continue emerging in industrial automation to enable multi-vendor interoperability in order to simplify integration, ensure application portability across vendor platforms and improve user choices.
Embedded Cybersecurity
Powerful solutions to mitigating concerns related to cybersecurity will see growth in the Systems on Chip (SoC) embedded in edge devices, including industrial controllers, process controllers, smart instrumentation, and other devices.
How Automation and Artificial Intelligence will Impact the future working?
Automation and Artificial intelligence (AI) are continuously transforming business processes with an objective to improve the productivity and quality of products. These technologies have also transformed the nature of work and the workplace itself. Workflow and workspace design will continue undergoing change in which people work more closely with machines. As work will becomes more collaborative, the organisations will have to become increasingly agile and non-hierarchical.
With the increase of automation and AI, machines will be able to carry out more and more of the tasks done by humans, complement the work that humans do or even perform some tasks that go beyond what humans can do. As a result of this work transformation, some occupations will decline, others will grow, and many more will change.
Under these revised work environments, workers will have to acquire new skills and adapt to working alongside increasingly higher capable machines at the workplace. Some workers may have to move from declining to growing occupations and in some cases they have to move to new occupations.
While automation and AI will bring a major transformation in the work space, it will have to fight with the challenge posed by the data security. We will have to actively guard against the risks against data loss and has to find effective ways to address data security, privacy, malicious use, and potential issues of bias.
Is the formal education sector prepared for the digital leap in terms of skills required?
Every two or three years or sometimes faster, we see the major technology innovations which largely influence the working and workplace environments. Therefore if the workforce does not update their technical skills every three years, they will lose their relevance and will no longer be employable. The onus to educate the workforce broadly lies with the technical institutes who have to keep students updated with the technology of the day and expected updated. It is therefore necessary that the academia must work closely with industry and keep the pace with the dynamics of the technology changes.
It has been often observed that the availability of skilled workforce is comparatively low where the market is poised to witness high growth because of simultaneous adoption of latest technologies in multiple sectors. This poses a major challenge of non-availability of enough number of technically competent professionals for the industry. In actual practice, this is one of the reasons of slow adoption of industrial IoT in India wherein the availability of trained manpower to develop efficient and safe application in this area is limited.
There is no doubt that India has specialised workforce but these are mostly available for segments requiring traditional technologies, which is one of the constraints in the development and implementation of latest technology solutions in the country.
The major reason for this mismatch is the gap between what traditional education system can provide and what industry needs. As per a recent study by Gallup Consulting, only 11% business leaders agree that graduates have the skills and competencies that their business demands. The existing education system in the country which has evolved over the years cannot meet the challenge of keeping pace with the fast changing technologies which require induction of latest technologies in the educational curriculum virtually in the real time basis. Indeed, more importantly, teachers now have to continue to develop and refresh their skills and knowledge in order to keep abreast with the constant innovations and new developments in the technology circle.
Policy makers working with the education system and the teaching staff themselves have to work out a pre-emptive approach to update and improve their technical skills in order to bridge the gap between the requirement and availability of necessary skill required by the industry.
In my opinion, a continuous participation, association and interaction between the academia and industry only can do the trick.
The sale of industrial robots witnessed a rising trend in India. Will this impact the job market?
The sales figures for industrial robots have increased almost four-fold since 2009. Asia is still the world’s strongest growth market. This increased use of robots in the industry will have a significant effect in our work force in the coming years. It is predicted that about half of the activities carried out by industrial workers could be automated by robots. In terms of jobs, this is likely to displace 15% to 30% of the present number of job workers by 2030 at the current growth rate.
Although there is no exact relationship between the percentages increase of sale of industrial robots to the work man displaced however it is predicted that under normal circumstances, enough work will be generated directly or indirectly by the use of robots in the industry sector.
Historically, technology itself has been a net job creator. It is expected that increased use of industrial robots will bring business dynamism and productivity growth in the country, creating newer job opportunities which cannot be predicted upfront. For example, who expected in the 1970s and 1980s that the introduction of the personal computer will create millions of jobs, not only for chip manufacturing, but also for software and app developers, system integrators and service providers. Objectively, the new occupations and opportunities may account for as much as 10 to 15% per cent of jobs created by 2030.
It is important to note that the engagement of robots and employees in performing work tasks is not mutually exclusive but these two are inter-dependent and complementary to each other. The interdependencies will make human work force more valued.
It goes without saying that the industrial robotisation will necessitate a significant workforce transitions and dislocation. Workers will need to acquire new skills and adapt to the increasingly capable machines alongside them in the workplace. This will also boost entrepreneurship and expert work force will look for avenues of newer business opportunities.
But there is work for everyone today and there should be work for everyone tomorrow, even in a future with automation and robotisation. Yet that work will be different, requiring new skills, and a far greater adaptability of the workforce than we have seen. Training and retraining both at midcareer stage and at entry level will be an imperative.
In short, to answer this question in YES or NO is speculative at this point of time because this all depends upon how the robot utilisation will progress with time and how the workman market responds to this change.
Are the SMEs keeping pace with their larger counterparts in digitalisation?
The adaptation of digital transformation in India at presents is quite fast. It is expected that by the end of 2020, India’s half of the population will be using the Internet. This simply mean that the new Indian consumer is online, net connected ,willing network user and accustomed to instant information access that traditional business models just cannot deliver. So if the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) understand the modern customers and wish to retain their competitive edge in their business, they must transform their business model and digitalise their operations.
Most of the SMEs realise that the strategic shift to digitalisation can result in greater efficiency, consistent accuracy and repeatability, reduced costs, streamlined operations and more productive workforce, however there also know that there are some compulsive barriers to implement digital transformation such as cost of transformation, data security implications and work force change management which force them to restrict the digitalisation process.
Therefore while the new and start-up companies are readily utilising the digitalisation to strengthen their business, older and more traditional SMEs want to transform their legacy infrastructure progressively to keep pace with increasing competition.
Will newer Automation technologies affect rural sector too?
India is an agriculture dominant country with most of the rural sector depends upon agriculture, animal husbandry, food processing, milk production and related areas. A “digital revolution” in rural sector is underway where advanced technologies like smart sensors, artificial intelligence, robotics and drones are increasingly being promoted as a means to increase production efficiency. In addition, increase of use of computers and network connectivity in rural area hold tremendous promise in the continued progress in this sector. Inclusive agriculture, community food storage and milk cooperatives and rural growth in food processing are the areas where automation, artificial intelligence and other new technologies shaping the rural transformation. Such structural transformation from agriculture to high-productivity manufacturing and other economic sectors is being accelerated, as technological change transforms rural individual’s lives and enables them to progress at speeds and on scales previously inconceivable.
In this process of continuous progress, rural digitalisation raises critical social questions about its implications for agricultural workmen as digitalisation evolves which include:
Rising land costs and cost of automation
The development of a better skilled workmen for new agriculture related technologies, and
Control of digital data and equipment.
Because of the reasons above, automation will hit rural areas hardest through shrinking wages and fewer job opportunities for farm workmen, partly because rural communities have lagged in economic development and growth compared to urban areas. While addressing these issues, it is important to keep proper balance between digitalisation and food production so as not to marginalise agricultural labourers.
I would like to emphasise that the current enthusiasm for digital rural sector should not blind us to the specific ways that new technologies intensify exploitation and deepen both labour and spatial marginalisation.
What are the new products/developments/ technical recommendations expected from your company in 2019?
Technology disruption in the oil and gas, chemicals industry and production industry is accelerating the pace of change and generating newer opportunities while handling a nonstop stream of challenges. To address such issues industry leaders, consultants and industry professionals need to anticipate, understand, and remain a step ahead of emerging technology trends.
Already new digital innovations are helping to expand the business and other resources, while lowering costs and increasing productivity. Advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning are helping to convert the industry’s vast collection of untapped data into actionable insights to develop innovative business strategies.
Some of the recent recommendations made to the industry for their future adoption which are expected to revolutionaries the plant operation in this technology driven global economy are summarised below:
IIoT applications and implementation
Since data security issue is being addressed, an integrated deployment of IIoT applications by working around data, Oil & Gas industry and chemical industry are recommended to automate and optimise operations, supply chain, inventory, customer relationship, Asset management , Maintenance management including Predictive maintenance and Energy management which add immense value to their production.
Cloud and mobile technology
Oil and Gas companies are recommended to leverage mobile technology solutions and applications in the area of Real-time Data Capture, Trouble-shooting, Safety Improvement and strategic decision making which will help to accelerate business growth, improve ways of communication and ensure visibility across business vertical by receiving real-time data.
Drone Technology
The Drones are ideal, safe, low cost technology and can have flexible plug and play payload capability which include several smarter sensors like infrared cameras, corrosion testing technologies, gas detector, 3D laser scanning, ultrasonic testing, etc., which enable operators to efficiently check various infrastructure conditions by continuously capturing data from the areas and installations which are remote and inaccessible under normal conditions. Companies will in the future rely on drones to carry out an initial site evaluation, as well as monitor and inspect pipelines, refining, and production facilities. Their flexibility and abilities will help the companies to easily, safely and quickly detect leaks, corrosion, theft, and other fault and security issues.
Therefore their use have been recommended for monitoring of pipelines, oil and gas/chemical pipeline operations, oil and gas exploration, oil and gas operations and performing complex inspections, which can improve the efficiency and productivity.
Robotics solutions for plant
With the introduction of Industrial Robots, the challenges faced by operators in such unpredictable, high risk and hostile environment can be mitigated. Therefore, robot technology has been recommended for fence line gas monitoring, mobile leak detection in natural gas pipelines, thermal imaging inspection for equipment condition monitoring and security provision at refinery and petrochemical facilities.
Mr Peush Mahajan, former Director, Engineers India Limited, has extensive experience of the Oil & Gas sector, besides working in prestigious organisations like Department of Atomic Energy and Bharat Pump & Compressors Limited. Mr Mahajan has more than 42 years of experience in Project Engineering and Management, having executed various projects in India and abroad.